Through a stint having my readers guest-blog on my blog, I met Mark
Siegel and his blog,
The 19th Floor. Mark is an attorney working in the area of disability
policy, and he’s a blogger who happens to have spinal muscular atrophy.
His blogging is simultaneously smart, funny, compelling, and frank.
Recently, I encouraged Mark to write a blog post about the relationship
between blogging and disability, which he’s posted on his blog today.
It’s entitled Making Accessible Minds, and it’s really wonderful.
Feel free to check it out, and link to it from your own blog if
you’d like.

Matt: adore your site but damn you to hell for sticking
The Pina Colada song in my head. I do appreciate a Vonnegut
reference as much as the next man, though.

Party on,

B. Oberkirch

Angell interview

Thanks for the great interview
with Roger Angell, a truly remarkable writer and person. Since
I see you are accepting copyediting changes, here are a few more:
It’s "Andy" White, not "Eddy"; "Maclean"
not "McLean"; "Shaugnessy" not "Shaunessy";
and "Giamatti" not "Giametti."

Great interview, but your transcriber made an error.
I’m confident that Angell was talking about the Oneonta Yankees,
not "Oneianda." Oneonta’s minor league team was for many
years affiliated with the Yankees. Oneonta is in the Catskills,
close to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and is home to
the SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College campuses.

They were the Oneonta Yankees. Oneianda, wherever that is, ain’t
the Catskills.

Regards,

Richard Sacks
Roger Angell’s old fact-checker (1974-1988)

Roger Angell

Robert,

Loved the interview
with Roger Angell, thank you so much. I went to Phillies-Mets
game on Saturday, my first trip to Shea (I’m from D.C. originally
and after five years in NYC and dozens of trips to Yankee Stadium,
I finally got on the 7 train). Anyway, the weather was beautiful,
so an old high school friend and myself bought $10 tickets and sat
in the upperdeck watching the game and talking baseball for four
hours. Reading the interview with Angell capped off a nice baseball
weekend.

Btw, Angell made one mistake… The Yankees team is in Staten Island
and the Mets team is in Coney Island. No biggie, just caught my
eye.

Thank You for a most enjoyable Q&A
with Mr. Angell on identitytheory.com. I started at the beginning
and I could stop. Wish there was more Q&A exchanges this good
out there.

Sincerely,
Chris Malcolm
Chicago Tribune/Red Eye

The Rough English Equivalent: Atheist’s
Dissertation Upon Roast Prig

Novelist Stan Hayes, the author of The
Rough English Equivalent, grimaces as he kneads his shoulder.
“Of all the times to tear a rotator cuff,” he says,
trading the grimace for a wry grin. “The book’s out,
I’m hammering on AKA Albatross, the sequel, we’re
working on tour dates, and I pick yesterday to go for too damn much
weight on the bench.” Extending a long leg, he swivels the
hotel desk chair with a push against the foot of the bed, a fresh
Heineken in his left hand. He fields the questions he’s heard
before. “Yeah, atheist’s the word. No getting around
it. I really thought that it’d be sort of a dead issue by
now, but that’s usually the first question people ask. And
what I say is, ‘If it’s good enough for Epicurus, it’s
damn sure good enough for me.’ And the next thing I generally
hear is ‘You’re a CONSERVATIVE?’ as if being an
atheist defaults you over to the left somewhere, politically. Conservatism,
just like atheism, simply makes a very basic kind of sense to me.”

He compared interviewers’ difficulty in reconciling his views
to that of the people of Bisque (BIS-kew), The Rough English Equivalent’s
principal setting. “They’re tootling along in a relatively
prosperous post-World War Two middle-Georgia backwater, when all
of a sudden this Jewish guy with an unpronounceable name shows up
out of the blue, and things start to change; fast. Within a couple
of weeks, he’s bought the town’s first-run movie house
and a booming old wartime Harley-Davidson sidecar rig, test-riding
it with a ‘colored boy’ and a six-pack. Not content
with that, he welcomes the attentions of Serena Mason, the town’s
romantic fantasy-woman, screws her silly and within a year buys
a beer distributorship with her father, a town heavyweight. Whatever
the average Bisquite’s impression of a ‘Jew-boy’
was, Moses Kubielski didn’t fit it. He’s a Harvey Keitel,
with a good left jab, as opposed to a Phil Silvers, with a good
line of shit. They just had the wrong expectations."

The Rough English Equivalent, he’s quick to point out, isn’t
just the story of outlander versus provincial small town. It’s
equally the story of Jack Mason, Serena’s son, and a decade
of his growing up. Serena left his father, a Manhattan Project scientist,
in Los Alamos in 1944 when Jack was seven, leaving the boy without
a day-to-day male role model. As the passion of his affair with
Serena levels off, Moses takes a rapidly increasing interest in
Jack’s life, which the boy reciprocates. Over the years, Moses
instructs him in disciplines as disparate as boxing, flying and
English literature. “This is a kid,” says Hayes, “who
has unlimited potential, who’s just being tolerated by his
parents, two of the most self-absorbed people you’ll ever
meet. They virtually abdicate the most important of their parental
responsibilities, leaving them to be carried out by a man who is,
fortunately, up to the job. But as the story unfolds, complications
arise, and we learn things. What kind of a novel would this be if
we didn’t?” The grin turns conspiratorial; “I’ll
guarantee my readers one thing for sure: you’ll never look
at a Buick in the same way again.”

Hayes’ life up to now has been eventful, but not, he says,
to the degree of his protagonists’. “I deferred my last
year of college, maybe forever as far as I knew, locked up my Snap-On
tool chest and bade my erstwhile employer, a pleasantly alcoholic
motorcycle dealer, a fond farewell. I caught the train to Pensacola
to cast my lot with Naval Aviation, and saw a nice chunk of the
world with the Hurricane Hunters and the Military Air Transport
Service. Afterward I caught up on that pesky last year of college,
did graduate school and a little corporate striving in New York.
I bailed out of the Big Apple about half an hour before my liver
morphed into a bookend, trading hyperventilation for deep breathing
on the banks of the Chattahoochee and indulging my pent-up passion
for tale-telling."

"I follow Epicurus in the pursuit of ataraxia, long-term satisfaction;
overrevving my old Suzuki, meeting my vodka martini quota and generally
operating at the edge of public tolerance. I may never fly a Grumman
biplane fighter, but my readers and I can damn sure follow Moses
and Jack through on the controls!” The book’s sequel,
AKA Albatross, follows Jack’s and Moses’ fortunes
into the turbulence of the sixties. “I’m continuing
to investigate the Four Fs,” Hayes says. “How can you
go wrong with Fear, Faith, Flying and Fornication?” The
Rough English Equivalent is available online at iUniverse.com,
Amazon.com,
Barnes & Noble and at selected
retailers.

DC Poets Against the War

DC Poets Against the War, an anthology containing
poetry by Grace Cavalieri, Peter Klappert, Sarah Browning, myself
and others is now available. For more information or to purchase
a copy, visit www.dcpaw.org.
Pre-publication reviews have been awesome so I’m sure you’ll enjoy
this collection of some of the finest and bravest voices in the
anti-war movement.

Thanks and enjoy,
Mike

Wallmart

11. Juli 2003

Dear Matt Borondy,
I just found your site on identiy.
I amworking on Identity.
But I find NOTHING in your site.
So why do you call itidentity theory ?????
It´s just the regular stuff like any you get at Wallmart
Beats me…

Best regards
Dr. Reinhold Muraskowsky

Dr. ‘Sky,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding Identity Theory. You make
a good point. Our selection of home furnishing and appliances bears
a strong resemblance to that of Wal-Mart, Target, and other large
discount chains. And Roger
Angell does look like a Wal-Mart greeter.

However, at Identity Theory, we believe the difference is quality
customer service. For example, if you go into Wal-Mart with a complaint
or a return, the woman at the customer service desk is likely to
abrubtly leave on her "break" while no one arrives to
replace her. You’ll have to stand there for 20 minutes until she
returns from smoking a generic cigarette and spitting on a few babies.
This would never happen at Identity Theory, where the customer comes
first.

To be sure, our level of customer service far surpasses that
of our rivals. Our motto: "We won’t spit on your baby."

As for why we call ourselves "Identity Theory," it’s
actually from a quote by the 21st Secretary of Defense of the United
States, Donald Rumsfeld: "We know where [the Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and
Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

You’re from Germany, eh? I didn’t know they had Wal-Marts in
Old Europe.

Best Regards,
Matt

Dear Matt!
Thank you so very much for your kind answer. I hope, I did not hurt
your feelings. The whoile world will be wallmatted down, so why
not we ourselves. Give uzp your identtiy and trade for somethimng
with moneyback garantee and 5 year protection plan. Go save. Sell
your soul the devil with 20 % interest.
I am so seriou about identity, something we know nothing about.
So I am so disappointed, that you use that term identity and offer
cheap stuff in return. Beats me.
Perhaps as a german I am more allergic than you. Hitler had no identity
himself and created a pathologic superficial synthetic one. Waht
is real and waht is synthetoic. That is the primary question. Bush
is a big cheater and liar! Kennedy had a lot of identity. Reagan
strangely too, but no brains…

All conflicts and problems are based on confusion about identity.
I am a Biochemist, Biologist and natuaral philosopher. A rattle
snak has a clear cut simple identity. It says, stay away from me.
All creatures understand that message. Identity confusion leeds
to illusions.Seeing tzhings, that are not there. And misinterpreting
reality. Einstein fooled us a lot. H created via mathematics a new
synthetic reality. Nobody questions thi, because his mathematics
may be convincning. So he invented a nw reality. Which may be phantasy…
Stay away from people with identity confusion. Wirth that simple
message, Bush should be thrown out of office. He creates only confusion,
because he is confused himself. And many confused people blieve
in him, because they have nothing to believe in. People believe
in Benny Hinn and his miracle crusades, which produce a profound
miracle for Benny Hinn…
It is amazig, what you find out, when you look for identity confusion.
>From Zig Ziegler I learned:
Good things are seldom cheap.
And cheap things are seldom good…
Identity is the most precious value on earth. Never trade it in.
There
is nothingf better or more precious. Nothing.

Wallmart societite offer you a lot for little money. But there
is no
value in it. It is junk.
Identity is the core of your personality and your soul. When you
know, who you are, you do the things you want to do. You are successful,
whne you know what you want. It is so simple. You do not need any
Gurus for that like Anthony Robbins and so on. The wisdom is in
yourself.
That i identity to me.
I a m working on a publication I call:
Identity
experience who you are.
It should make significant contributions – or I´ll better
junk it…

there is no shadow in my light
my heart is unbroken
and my soul untroubled

endogenous happiness…

Best wishes to someone, who could be a friend!
Reinhold

Dear 1305-629!

I disagree with your premise that Wal-mart has no value and
is junk. While their customer service is no match for Identity Theory’s,
they do offer a lot of practical items for affordable prices. And
their interest rates are much better than that of the devil’s.

Perhaps as a German you are, indeed, more "allergic"
than me. Unlike my sister, I’ve never had a problem with allergies,
and I’m sure it’s because I shop at Wal-mart and she shops at the
Gap. Strangely, I’ve been getting bitten by a lot of bugs lately
though. My legs are all red. I could definitely use a trip to Wal-mart
for some bug spray.

As an American, I am appalled that you would criticize George
W Bush as having "no identity" and wish someone like Kennedy
or Reagan were in office. For one, I don’t want a president who’s
just gonna spend his mornings getting shot all over the place. Secondly,
George W Bush is one of the greatest Presidents in American history.
Think about it. Has any American President ever killed more innocent
Arabs under fraudulent pretexts? I don’t think so. That’s the yardstick
I use to measure my Presidents:

#1: They don’t get shot like a damn pussy.
#2: They kill a lot of Arabs for no reason.

I am very happy that we have a president who manages to convince
the people of his country that killing thousands of people is the
right thing to do. I wish he would kill more people because I know
the more people he kills the better it is for Identity Theory’s
stock price, and also the more people he kills the more likely he
is to get re-elected and if he gets re-elected he can kill more
people! That would be so sweet! Especially if they’re innocent Arabs
who were never a threat to anyone!

I love Benny Hinn! OMG! He lives right down the street from
me! And you’re right. Einstein was a dumbass. It’s really a shame
about that whole "quantum theory" thing because if they
hadn’t gone and thought that up, we would have never developed nuclear
weapons, and Hitler would have probably taken over the world.

In summary, Deutschland uber alles, my nigga!

Your pal,
Matt

Dear Matt!
I am totally confused wirth your mail.
Can not understand, what is serious what is joke.
Why would that be great killing thousands of innocent people?
Would you love to be killed innocently?

I have no problems wirh arabs at all.
I would rather say, we have a problem with mental software.
We have no choice, which software we have.
It is very hard to work on that.
I am doing it and it is painful.
To develop your own software based IDENTY.
I wathced Benny Hinn many times on TV and I coulkd not find one
true thing in him or his messages. He seems to me a very selfish
person.
I have nothiong at all against wallmart, as I have very little money
myself and I am forced to shop economically. But thoise megastores
put the small owners out of business, who can give you a better
service.
That is my experience.
Anyway, I still do not understand your point on identity.
Are we talking on completely different subjects and misunderstand
ourselves totally?
I am not for Germany, Deutschland über alles. That brought
a lot of evil into the world. I am much more a Fan of the French
Albert Schweitzer, who brought a lot of goodness to poor people!

best wishes
Reinhold

Hello again 1305-629!

Sorry for the confusion. Why yes, there is nothing I would
love more than to be "killed innocently," as you put it.
I often spend hours daydreaming about being killed innocently. In
fact, I have requested to Donald Rumsfeld that when they decide
to kill me innocently, that they play the Bon Jovi song "Blaze
of Glory" while killing me innocently. "Shot doooooooooooown
in the blaze of gloooooooooryyy!!!" That’s how I want to go.
Boy, I can’t wait. It’s going to be so damn innocent!

As for your comment about Wal-mart’s taking over small businesses,
I only have one thing to say about small businesses: Fuck ’em! They’re
usually run by smelly Arabs anyway. I don’t like people who smell.
That’s why God invented cruise missiles.

Did you ever see that movie "Reality Bites"? It’s
pretty good, I was just watching the copy I bought at Wal-mart for
7 bucks. Every time Winona Ryder goes to a job interview, they ask
her to define irony, and she can’t do it, then she asks Ethan
Hawke (love that guy) about it and he explains what it is and
she’s like "I thought you were just some slacker who bangs
out a lot of ugly girls and sings in the band Hey That’s My Bike
and smokes pot out of Coke cans." I don’t know if Janeane Garafalo
was in that scene or not. In
fact I don’t even know if that’s how you spell Janeane Garafolo.

As far as working on your "mental software," I just
received an e mail about updating your software. I have attached
that for your benefit. Hopefully it will help you get everything
squared away upstairs.

Viva La France!

Your friend in Christ,
Matt

Demand the Truth–Pass it On

Dear Constituent,

In light of late-breaking events, I thought it was important that
I write to you today.

It is now clear that there are those in this administration who
misled the nation and misled the world in making the case for pre-emptive
war.

They know who they are. And they should resign today.

Please join me in demanding that those responsible for misleading
the American people resign by clicking on the link below:

In his State of the Union address, President Bush claimed that
Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium in Africa for the production
of nuclear weapons. We know now that the documents he relied upon
to make that claim were forged.

Yesterday, in testimony before the Senate, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld made the stunning announcement that it was only
"within recent days" (since the press had begun reporting
it) that he learned about the forgery. Yet Secretary of State Colin
Powell, in February, had enough reservations about the validity
of the documents that he did not cite them in his presentation to
the UN.

The American people must know the truth.

There will be investigations, and the truth will come out, and
those in this administration must be held accountable for their
failure to give us the truth before we went to war.

But we do not need to wait for the investigations to rid these
people from our government — they can resign on their own today.
Call on those who misled the American people to resign today by
clicking on the link below:

I am now convinced more than ever that it was a mistake to have
given this administration a blank check to engage in this war —
as too many in Congress did when they supported the Iraqi war resolution.

Please forward this message on to everyone in your email list.
Ask them to join us. We all must stand up and demand the facts from
our government in Washington.

From where will my motivation come? As with any other day, this
is about the time I finish the last drink of my latte. Peering into
the hole of the lid (just to be sure), I accept the finality. This
vessel has no more to offer and I know it is time to begin my work
in earnest.

Today, however, my surroundings are different. It is Labor Day.
Instead of being perched on my burgundy office chair, peering at
the computer screen for some sign of motivation, I am lounging in
the backyard gathering up the gumption to walk away from this perfect
day and begin painting my daughter’s room in earnest. The word lounging
is used loosely, for there are no lounge chairs…thankfully. It
would be too difficult to turn away. My lounging apparatus is composed
of two rubbermaid lawnchairs facing each other.

The warmth of the sun is countered by a slight breeze, gusty enough
to cool at appropriate times. The sky is clear and that beautiful
blue you remember from wonderful vacations, but forget that they
also happen in Michigan. Wind chimes deliver their musical accompaniment
to the willow branches as their tips caress the blades of grass.
A few crickets unwittingly chirp along…do they know these are
the days of their last hurrays?

How can Ithink of moving from this spot of heaven to enter the
house and smell the fumes of paint instead of summer and fall passing
each other? From where will my motivation come? Amazingly it comes
in the form of my dog. With a snort, Bailey rolls and heaves herself
up from the cool grass that cushioned her. She slowly saunters sideways
(her hindquarters listing from one side or another) up her little
worn path in the grass and enters the garage. As I gather my things
and resolve to begin my painting, I brush away the nagging knowledge
that Bailey has only gone to find another place to lay and enjoy
the warmth of the sun…

My name is Amy Kohrman. I live and work in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Jotting down thoughts occurs randomly and most often when I should
be doing something important (like paying bills or painting a room
for my daughter in this case). I enjoy gardening, photography, my
family and my dog.

This is not your everyday hemp oil.
There is no life experience that could possibly prepare you for
what KAYA can give you. As of today you are able to purchase the
first and only legal Cannabis Fragrance. That’s right, we said Cannabis
Fragrance. KAYA represents the new frontier of hemp products in
the United States. A scent so similar to the Cannabis plant that
if blindfolded, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the
real plant and the KAYA All Natural Cannabis Fragrance. Wear it,
burn it, sizzle it, steam it, smell it, indulge it and enjoy it.
There are endless ways to use this natural Cannabis plant oil extract.
All ways that will leave you and your friends astounded at the amazing
scent. Visit us at www.smellkaya.com
to find out more about this revolutionary hemp product. You will
not be disappointed.

Management,
Smellkaya.com

Dear Constituent,

I cannot thank you enough for your incredible support at a critical
moment in our campaign. Because of your efforts, we have transformed
this race. (Now that the second quarter is over, my campaign will
return to sending you only the occasional email– on average, one
per week.)

Today, you stand with over 180,000 people, determined to restore
the American community and our nation’s traditional role as an idealistic
moral force in world affairs.

Our tremendous achievement now gives us the opportunity to build
our campaign even further. Much remains to be done for us to win
the Democratic nomination and to prepare ourselves for the fight
against George W. Bush in 2004.

If we are to defeat this President in the general election, we
must continue building the largest grassroots campaign in the history
of presidential politics. Building that grassroots effort now is
what our campaign is about. We cannot wait until after the primaries
are over and the nominee decided to enlist people in our cause,
because only a grassroots campaign of one to two million Americans
will have the power to defeat the special interests that are filling
the coffers of George W. Bush’s campaign.

To help grow our campaign, I need you to take a simple action today.
Please join others in forwarding this email on to at least 3 of
your friends, family members, or colleagues. Tell them about our
successes, and about your commitment to taking our country back
from the ideologues in Washington. Let them know why you support
our campaign, and ask them to join us. They can sign up simply by
clicking here:

Thousands have demonstrated that our individual actions, when united
in common cause with the actions of thousands of others, have the
power to change this country. In the last nine days of the second
quarter, 59,000 people came together to help raise a total of $7.5
million for our campaign. We surpassed everyone’s expectations,
and last Monday we made history, raising over $803,000 on the Internet
in a single day.

If you were unable to give last quarter, please consider making
a contribution today:

We have come a long way in a short period. We are where we are
today because you have given so much of your time and resources
to make it all happen. Thank you for all you’ve done. Let’s grow
the movement, and together, with thousands more beside us, we will
win the White House in 2004.

Stephen Oliver makes a turn in language in his latest
release, Deadly Pollen,
a collection of new and recently published poems full of both original
and mystical references. Conversation, myth, image, symbol – all
are mined for their poetic point, all wrung out to dry.

Perhaps the most approachable book of Oliver’s to date, Deadly
Pollen is full of poems that are complete in and of themselves,
yet woven together with spirituality, a sense of the magic of science.

The author says his book "represents an ongoing exploration
of damage to our larger cultural environment" and uses his
work to "pay homage to historical memory." If, as Auden
suggests, "poems make nothing happen," then Oliver’s poetry
is vital, classic, the literary equivalent of Dorothea Lange’s photography.
Oliver calls poetry “an exercise of loss and preservation."
In Deadly Pollen, he submits his evidence to the world.

I think I pissed myself

I really think I pissed myself. Just go and do this!

Type in the following exactly as shown in google (www.google.com)
and hit the I’m feeling lucky button. Read the "error
screen" that follows!

"weapons of mass destruction"

Chris

email to Italy

We are an artists’ management company that works with
Classical Musicians and we bring several Italian performers and
some a few American artists go to Italy to perform.

Since March 2003, we have been unable to communicate with the Quartetto
Bernini; Emanuele Segre (guitar); Maurizio Bulli, conductor….

Our email is blacklisted BUT only in Italy. We communicate with
Great Britain, France, Germany, Korea, etc. Several years ago, we
had a computer which was an "open relay" but that was
changed and we no longer have the open relay.

once we could look at the sky–
birds would flutter from roof to bough
their tiny voices the clicking of cool pearls
plush clouds would roll by
on ambling afternoons
sometimes
like floats on parade
and when we least expected
the rain would come
a sudden celebration
a swell of slick black nylon
dripping plump silver raindrops
like joyful tears
when the bride and groom first kissed
amid a shower of white rice and cascading confetti–

once we could look at the cool blue sky

* * * * * *

The best measure
is to have the proper protective clothing
and gas mask.
If these are not available
you should move as quickly as possible
into a building.
Seal windows and doors
reduce ventilation, turn off A/C.
Stay in the room with the lowest air flow.
Breath through a dense towel
or better yet
use towel wrapped around a dry piece of charcoal.
Impervious clothing
such as raincoat and tight goggles
can help.
Head and body hair should be covered.
DO NOT leave the building
or open any doors to the outside.
Chemicals should disperse in one to two hours.

After the chemicals have dissipated
quickly leave the area of contamination.
DO NOT pick up items from the outside.

* * * * * *

I remember the Kurds–
there’s a picture in Time magazine
faces frozen
like porcelain dolls
carelessly laid
unknown, forgotten folk
sleeping now
peacefully at last

what had they done to deserve such immortality

their villages I hear were once filled with song–
the flute and the tambourine
children dancing at the wedding celebration
clean bright costumes whirling
around their unsuspecting lives

do you remember the Kurds
their national song silenced
cottages flattened
bodies strewn like matchsticks along the roadside
that strange imposed sleep

all that’s left

* * * * * *

One day the soldiers came.
It was fajr1
or just before
so much has happened I can’t remember.
But what we heard was not the azzan
what we saw was not the sunrise

(birds dropping from trees
yellow clouds blistering in the sky
cats, dogs, people choking
where do I run
where are the children)

When the shooting was over
when the radio station went off the air
when days maybe weeks had passed
and our food supplies ran thin
we got in our cars
shot straight for the desert.

An old bedouin guided us to the border.
He knew every dune, every wadi
like the wife he had loved since his sixteenth year.

It was his way of serving, he said.
Would do so till they shot him.
May God protect his gentle soul.

* * * * * *

we sit and wait

(will the sun rise tomorrow
will the birds sing their song)

despair, hope, wonder

(so many stories to be told
so many yet to be born
so many never to be known)